GiftGnome privacy policy
GiftGnome is a Secret Santa app for iPhone made by Forgeyard Digital. This page explains what the app and this website do with your data.
Effective date: 9 November 2026
The short version
- No accounts and no sign-in.
- Names, photos and draws stay on the phone they were added on.
- We count how the app and website are used. Those counts contain no names, photos or other personal data.
- No ads, no tracking across other apps or websites, and we never sell your data.
What stays on your phone
The names and photos you add, your groups, and each draw are stored only on the phone GiftGnome is running on. They are not sent to us. They are also excluded from iCloud and device backups, so they do not move to a new phone.
The app uses your camera or photo library only when you choose to add a photo. Deleting a group removes its people, photos and draw from the phone. Deleting the app removes everything.
Links for people not in the room
When you send someone a link, it carries only that person's result: their name, the name of the person they are buying for, a colour number for the circle on the page, and the group name. No photos, no other people's results.
All of this sits in the part of the link after the # sign. Browsers do not send that part to the web server, and the page works out the result inside the browser. Nothing from the link is stored on a server by us.
The details are scrambled so they are not readable in the message. Scrambling is not encryption: anyone who has the link can open it, and someone determined could decode it. The link travels through whichever messaging or email app you choose to send it with, and that app's own privacy terms apply. A link you have already sent keeps showing its result even after you delete the group.
App usage counts
The app uses TelemetryDeck, a privacy-focused analytics service, to count things like:
- the app being opened;
- a draw being made, and how many people were in it;
- a reveal being finished;
- a link being sent;
- a redraw;
- someone looking at their result again.
These counts never include names, photos, group names or who got whom. Each one also carries general technical details: the app version, the iOS version, the device model, screen size, time zone, light or dark mode, accessibility settings and language and region settings. TelemetryDeck never receives a device identifier. The app turns it into a one-way hash on the phone before anything is sent, so repeat visits can be counted without us knowing who you are.
Why: to see whether the app works well and what to improve. You can read more in TelemetryDeck's privacy policy.
This website
Like any website, giftgnome.app is served by a web host, which keeps ordinary request logs such as IP address, browser type and the page asked for, for running and protecting the site. The part of a link after the # sign is never in those logs.
The home page, the guide and this page use TelemetryDeck to count page views and taps on the App Store button. For each one it records the page address, the site you came from, your browser's language, and the country, which TelemetryDeck works out from your connection. The page that opens a link does not use analytics. Nothing is stored on your device: no cookies and no other browser storage.
Children
GiftGnome does not knowingly collect personal data from anyone, including children.
Your rights
We hold no name, email address or account for you, so there is nothing of yours for us to look up, export or delete. You still have the right to ask us what we hold, and we will answer. If you are in the UK, you may also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.
Changes
If this policy changes, we will update this page and its effective date.
Contact
Forgeyard Digital is the data controller. Forgeyard Digital, United Kingdom. Email us at support@giftgnome.app.